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A recent mission to Iraq headed by top archaeologists ... found that, contrary to received wisdom, southern Iraq's most important historic sites ... had neither been seriously damaged nor looted after the American invasion. This, according to a report by staff writer Martin Bailey in the July issue of the Art Newspaper. The article has caused confusion, not to say consternation, among archaeologists and has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Not surprising perhaps, since reports by experts blaming the U.S. for the postinvasion destruction of Iraq's heritage have been regular fixtures of the news. Up to now ......

An unpublicized survey last month of eight of southern Iraq's most important archaeological sites by a team of international specialists found no evidence of looting since the invasion of the country in 2003 by the U.S. coalition, despite earlier, widespread claims of extensive damage. The 25-person mission, titled the Cultural Heritage Initiative, included four international archaeologists, three Iraqi archaeologists, a helicopter crew and military personnel for protection, reported the Art Newspaper. The group began their three-day survey on June 3 from Basra, staying overnight at another airbase 180 miles southeast of Baghdad. The helicopter and armed protection was provided by...

Jordan handed over nearly 2,500 stolen ancient artifacts to Iraq in a ceremony in Amman on Sunday. The repatriation is latest step in recovering about 15,000 priceless artifacts that were smuggled out of the country by looters during the chaos following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and have been turning up at art auctions around the world. Many were taken from the national museum in Baghdad, and thousands more were looted from archeolgoical sites. At the ceremony, Maha Khatib, Jordan's minister of tourism, presented the pieces to her Iraqi counterpart, Mohammed Abbas Oreibi. Oreibi told reporters that the...

During the week after Father’s Day, I received a number of interesting emails from readers asking me to write about the dearth of looting after the recent floods in Iowa. Specifically, they wanted me to write about the reason there was so much more looting in New Orleans after Katrina hit the “Chocolate City” in 2005. Of course, the problem involves so much more than race – a factor most people are thinking about, even if they won’t admit it...

Much more information over here --->>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301751.html 

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi National Museum is welcoming home 701 artifacts stolen during the looting after Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003. Syrian authorities turned over items ranging from golden necklaces to clay pots that were seized by traffickers in the neighboring country. The antiquities were displayed in a ceremony Sunday at the Baghdad museum. Iraqi officials say Syria is the first country to hand over a large quantity of stolen antiquities. They hope others will follow its lead as Iraq struggles to restore its rich cultural heritage after five years of war. Museums were pillaged of treasures in the chaos...

screaming into its own defense. For those of you searching for the word to describe, it's called LEADERSHIP. We lead, we convince, we bargain, we bribe, we trade with, we give, we threaten, we give help we do whatever it takes to convince those most directly affected — countries like France, England, Germany and Italy — to get directly involved, and this time, finish the damn job. Serbia is not done being a pain in the world’s butt. The Serbs feel entitled to their hatred and fear. They are welcome to them; just leave the rest of us the hell...

Did you see any looters on television last week? Neither did I. When New Orleans was flooded two years ago, there were looters all over my TV screen. Men with assault rifles waded through the streets menacingly. At first, I thought I was looking at footage from Somalia, but I looked at the crawl underneath the images - it wasn’t Somalia; it was Louisiana. What about the rapists? There were rapists at the refugee camp formerly known as the Superdome, but did you see any reports about rapists at Qualcomm Stadium last week? I didn’t. Did the mayor of San...

Talk about your bigotry of low expectations . . . Brian Williams has defended armed looting during Katrina as the work of heads of family providing for their own. The NBC Nightly News anchor is in New Orleans on the second Katrina anniversary. He appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" at 7:30 A.M. EDT. Williams first passed along a predictable race-and-classed based explanation of the botched relief efforts. BRIAN WILLIAMS: That's when human life started to degrade. That's when people ran out of of bathroom facilities and started having to use the entire [Superdome]: no power, no circulating air, and worse,...

Stop The Apologizing Already Apologies must be in this year, Danes sorry for looting and pillaging MORE than 1200 years ago hordes of bloodthirsty Viking raiders descended on Ireland, pillaging monasteries and massacring the inhabitants. On Wednesday, one of their more mild-mannered descendants stepped ashore to apologise. The Danish Minister for Culture, Brian Mikkelson, who was in Dublin to celebrate the arrival of a replica Norse longboat, apologised for the invasion and destruction inflicted. "In Denmark we are certainly proud of this ship but we are not proud of the damage to the people of Ireland that followed in the...

Food and drinking water shortages, panic buying and the threat of looting have followed the worst flooding to hit England in 60 years. Amid concerns that the government-run Environment Agency acted far too slowly in responding to serious flood alerts from the Met Office, parts of the West Country woke up this morning to another day under water and the Thames Valley now faces being inundated.

A crowd on Saturday looted the home of longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, destroying one of the strongest symbols of the Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip, witnesses and Fatah officials said. Fatah officials said the crowd took furniture, wall tiles and Arafat's personal belongings. (AP)

GREENSBURG, Kan. Four Fort Riley soldiers were arrested for looting from a store in Greensburg. Major General Tod Bunting, the state's adjutant general, said the soldiers came to Greensburg to help on their own, and were not part of any official detachment. Few details were available, but Bunting says the four went into a store last night and took more merchandise than the owner wanted them to take. He was not sure what store they went into, but it was one of the few buildings still standing after Friday night's storm. Bunting also did not know exactly what the soldiers...

Looting troops prey on Somalia's refugees Fugitives are forced to pay to shelter in the shade Sam Kiley Sunday April 29, 2007 The Observer (UK) During a lull in fighting in Mogadishu yesterday, survivors picked their way through the post-apocalyptic landscape of Somalia's capital, quickly burying bodies. The floors and stairs of the filthy hospitals were crammed with injured civilians and slick with blood. Up to 350,000 refugees from fighting were camped in the bush - easy prey for armed thugs and warlords. Almost two weeks of heavy fighting and indiscriminate shelling between Islamic militia and clan fighters battling Ethiopian...

George Soros has surfaced again-this time in Europe, where he is urging members of the EU to stop worrying about a constitution,and dance to his "Open Society" tune. This "pied piper" has quite a few tapping their feet to his music in this country too-Lord help us !

Marine to return ancient signature seals to Iraq PHILADELPHIA A U-S Marine who brought home seemingly cheap souvenirs from Iraq has turned them over to authorities after learning they are ancient stone seals used as signature stamps.The Marine paid a vendor a few hundred dollars for the eight seals, and had them examined by a university archaeologist upon his return. The seals were looted from an archaeological site near Babylon. They are about five-thousand years old and valued at two-thousand to five-thousand dollars each. U-S soldiers are allowed to bring back souvenirs and trinkets, but Assistant U-S Attorney Bob Goldman...

Entire Darfur village of 55,000 flees after raids by Janjaweed gunmen By David Blair in Menawashi (Filed: 04/02/2006) Exhausted refugees were building ramshackle shelters in a dry river bed yesterday after 55,000 people fled a raid mounted by the Janjaweed militia in the Sudanese province of Darfur. It was the biggest movement of refugees there so far this year. The victims, many of whom have fled attacks twice or even three times before, are camped around the town of Menawashi in southern Darfur. They abandoned the nearby town of Mershing after two attacks from the pro-regime militia in the space...

The Clarion Ledger/Gannett Rules. URL Link: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060703/NEWS/607030352

<p>KENNER, La. (AP) - Three people convicted of hauling away liquor, wine and beer from a grocery store after Hurricane Katrina were sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison.</p> <p>The judge said he wanted to send a message that looting would not be tolerated when he gave the maximum sentence to Coralnelle Little, 36, Rhonda McGowen, 42, and Paul C. Pearson, 36, all of Kenner.</p>

Russia is growing, and so are the shadows that are cast over the business proceedings there. The bureaucracy is still extremely burdensome and growing. And laws are a matter of convenience and seemingly circumvented at will -- or at least when you have the right connections. Corruption and middlemen are a matter of course, and bribes are expected and given. Confiscation of private goods -- i.e., Motorola's ongoing fiasco -- and resale for profit is old news. Legitimate dealings are called smuggling. And smuggling is called smuggling. Russian law allows confiscated material in criminal investigations to be sold or destroyed...

Four New Orleans police officers have been cleared of allegations that they looted a Wal-Mart store after Hurricane Katrina, but each was suspended 10 days for not stopping civilians from ransacking the store, the Police Department said. The probe stemmed from an MSNBC report that showed the officers filling a shopping cart with shoes, clothes and other items. When a reporter asked the officers what they were doing, one responded, "Looking for looters" and turned her back. Assistant Police Chief Marlon Defillo, commander of the Public Integrity Bureau, said the officers seen on the video were recently cleared of looting...

NOPD clears cops in looting probe They had OK to take clothing, officials say Saturday, March 18, 2006 By Michael Perlstein Staff writer Four New Orleans police officers have been cleared of looting allegations stemming from a news videotape that shows them taking items from the Uptown Wal-Mart two days after Hurricane Katrina, but the officers were suspended for 10 days for failing to stop civilians from cleaning out the ransacked store, the New Orleans Police Department said Friday. Advertisement The video, shot by an MSNBC crew inside Wal-Mart, shows the officers filling a shopping cart with shoes, clothes and...

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Much of the looting that was shown on TV newscasts and in newspaper photographs after Hurricane Katrina has vanished from New Orleans police reports. The New Orleans Police Department has used a special code, 21K, to designate property that disappeared during or after the storm as "lost or stolen," the New Orleans Times-Picayune said. Possible crimes with that designation do not show up in the city's crime statistics. The 21K designation has been used for 62 percent of the missing property complaints made in the city since Katrina struck in late August. In some...

Louisiana Woman Charged After Hurricane Katrina Left Area in Ruins GRETNA, La. (Jan. 13) - A church deaconess and great-grandmother jailed for two weeks after being accused of looting sausage during Hurricane Katrina will not be prosecuted. Merlene Maten, 73, learned of the decision Wednesday when she appeared in court for her arraignment, said her attorney, Daniel Becnel III. "My God tells me it's best to give than to receive. So for anybody to even think of accusing me of doing something like that, it just sickens me to my stomach. But thank God, thank God, thank God it's over,"...

the trial lawyers. The city is awash with writ-writing attorneys -- most from Louisiana but some nationally recognizable -- looking to profit from the misery inflicted by nature. Already, they have filed class-action lawsuits against the oil and natural gas industry, insurance companies and governments. More suits are coming, with possible defendants including relief agencies such as the American Red Cross. ("Thanks for your help. See you in court.") The lure is the "prospect of big settlements," The Baltimore Sun reports. Among the more lecherous litigators is Joseph Larre. He normally handles criminal cases, but his 300 clients were evacuated...

We are finally getting back to normal, as the state Legislature convenes today, apparently prepared to enrich its own members and incur ruinous debts for the taxpayer. Gov. Kathleen Blanco's call for the Katrina session will remove any doubts in Washington that Louisiana does not deserve the money it is requesting for relief and cannot be trusted with a dime. Blanco, who came to office touting ethics, says it is perfectly fine for public officials to handle government reconstruction contracts on the side. "They are private citizens initially," Blanco said. But contractors who are just private citizens will be at...

President Bush’s advisers insist that he’s not abandoning conservatism in his commitment to rebuild the Gulf Coast. But a mark of conservative thinking is properly identifying problems before dedicating billions to solving them. The president hasn’t done that in New Orleans. Instead, in his September 15 speech from Jackson Square, Bush vowed to combat “poverty”—a foe that cities and the feds have never conquered in their long war against urban decay. In the language of Lyndon Johnson, Bush ascribed the violence and desperation Americans saw in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina to “deep, persistent poverty in this...

CANCUN, Mexico, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Dazed foreign tourists stranded in stinking shelters in this hurricane-hit Mexican beach resort demanded to be rescued on Monday, and President Vicente Fox lost his cool at slow aid efforts. Toilets overflowed and food was scarce at refuges in Cancun, where some 20,000 vacationers spent their fifth day sleeping on floors or in stuffy rooms without electricity or running water. ~Snip~An outbreak of looting over the weekend added to the chaos and forced the government to deploy troops to halt the lawlessness. A fist fight broke out overnight at the El Forito theater, which...

CANCUN, Mexico - Mexicans and stranded tourists, hungry and frustrated after a two-day beating by Hurricane Wilma, stood in line to buy supplies Sunday or simply raided grocery or furniture stores, dragging goods from shops ripped open by the storm. The hurricane's steady march toward southern Florida meant an end here to two days of howling winds and torrential rains that shattered windows, peeled away roofing and sent the ocean crashing into hotel lobbies. The sun emerged over Mexico's sugar-white Caribbean beaches. But another kind of chaos took over, as police shot into the air to scare looters away from...

TOLEDO, Ohio — A crowd that gathered to protest a white supremacists' march Saturday turned violent, throwing baseball-sized rocks at police and vandalizing vehicles.

Making a forceful first appearance as acting New Orleans police chief and attempting to deflect growing criticism of the New Orleans Police Department's behavior after Hurricane Katrina, acting Superintendent Warren Riley announced Thursday he has suspended four officers without pay and put more than a dozen others under investigation. The investigations stem from a handful of events during which the officers were accused of looting, or failed to combat looting, Riley said. He declined to name the locations at which the officers' alleged activity or inaction occurred, except for the Sewell Cadillac Chevrolet dealership in the Central Business District. "I...

9 News first brought you the story of some alleged looting by NOPD officers holed up in a Canal Street hotel in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Thursday, an investigation was launched to find out if any of those officers will face charges. Initially, 9 News crews set out to investigate the condition of some of the hospitals in and around Canal Street on that Sunday morning, but their focus quickly shifted to the Amerihost Inn and Suites. Their attention was drawn to the hotel by a man waving to them out of a second story window. The man told...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The police department has launched an investigation into whether officers participated in the giant looting spree that overtook the city after Hurricane Katrina, a spokesman said Thursday. News reports in the aftermath of the storm put officers at the scene of some of the heaviest looting, the Wal-Mart in the Lower Garden District. Some witnesses — including a Times-Picayune reporter — said police were taking items from shelves. "Out of 1,750 officers, we're looking into the possibility that maybe 12 officers were involved in misconduct," police spokesman Marlon Defillo said. He rejected the use of the...

Excerpt from transcript of tonight's Paula Zahn yack show on CNN......GRIFFIN (voice-over): It could be the single worst moment in the history of the New Orleans Police Department. And it centers on what happened at this Canal Street hotel. The night New Orleans flooded, Osman Khan says 70 officers moved into his Amerihost Inn and Suites; 62 of them then went out to fight the looters and thugs. But eight officers, he says, began a four-day-long looting spree of their own. OSMAN KHAN, HOTEL MANAGER: Oh, yes. They would probably leave around 9:00, 10:00 at night and come back around...

Thursday, September 29, 2005 Wanton Destruction in Gaza Bodes Ill for the Future The torching of synagogues and the looting and destruction of greenhouses in Gaza doesn't bode well for a future Palestinian state if one is to ever exist. Indeed, the destruction of those synagogues makes it far more unlikely that Israel will concede areas with important Jewish holy sites in Judea and Samaria. The greenhouses, donated to the Palestinian people by wealthy American Jews who bought them from the former settlers, used to provide Israel with $60 to $100 million in agricultural exports annually. They could have provided...

LOS ANGELES (AP) Lawyers for the J. Paul Getty Museum have determined that half the masterpieces in its antiquities collection were bought from dealers suspected of selling artifacts embezzled from Italy, according to a published report Sunday. Getty officials knew as early as 1985 that several of their suppliers were selling artworks that probably had been looted, but the museum continued the acquisitions, according to hundreds of documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Italian authorities are demanding the return of 42 objects in the Getty collection they believe were stolen, including ancient urns, vases and a 5-foot marble statue...

Wanted to caution everyone thinking of buying a used car, boat, or other used merchandise to use extreme caution that it is not from a storm damaged area.Within a few days, to weeks, we will see several thousand flood damaged car, and boats, showing up at auctions and local car lots around the country.

Just as Katrina's receding waters revealed acres of ruined houses, flooded cars and pockets of bodies, the post-storm cleanup also raised the curtain on a trail of mass looting that left even the most jaded New Orleans police officers awestruck. As search and rescue crews staged house-to-house searches for survivors during the past two weeks, they repeatedly stumbled upon stacks of merchandise -- from large appliances still in the box to knotted tangles of hastily pilfered jewelry. Much of the loot is being recovered from the drier areas of Uptown and Central City in the 6th Police District. "At first,...

Associated Press HOUSTON -- When Houston-area residents heeded warnings to flee Hurricane Rita, they left behind nearly abandoned neighborhoods and stores. And a potential playground for thieves. By Friday morning at least three people had been arrested on charges of looting. Houston school district police arrested three juveniles Thursday night who were accused of going room to room at Hamilton Middle School looking for electronics. “They did this because they thought no one would be paying attention,” district spokesman Terry Abbott said. “We are amazed it was happening even before the storm.” Houston Police Capt. Dwayne Ready said city police...

The MSM must be hating this. No looters. No calls for Fed aid from local authorities. Well implemented evac plans. Police and Fire doing there jobs.I wonder how this will play out in the MSM.

Police Find Relief Supplies in City Official's Home The Associated Press Published: Sep 21, 2005 BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday. Officers searched Cedric Floyd's home because of complaints that city workers were helping themselves to donations for hurricane victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods. Police plan to seek a charge of committing an illegal act as a public official...

New Orleans Drug Store Looter Arrested At Panama City Beach With Thousands Dollars Worth of stolen drugs

One of the most powerful images from the aftermath of the Southeast Asian earthquake and tsunamis, was this one from Banda Aceh just days after the terrible tragedy. The photo above is that of a young man, a looter, who was beaten into submission and then paraded through the village square with a placard around his neck that says in Indonesian "Saya Maling" (I'm a thief). Without the aid of the police or militia the photo shows the determination and the will of a altruistic, righteous and self-disciplined group of people desirous for the return of law and order to...

I am getting this sinking feeling we are all being scammed. We have heard of 20,000 up to 40,000 deaths, Rapes, Murders, Mayhem, widespread looting and shooting. Now the death toll is expected around 200-400. During the week after the hurricane we were hearing that bodies were strewn all over the place. Now we hear that searchers have found very few bodies except tragically for 40 elderly patients in an old folks home. Could all the stories we have been hearing be total fabrications? This story in the Boston Globe is one of many that are starting to question...

HURRY! Selections are limited!.........

The victims have been dispersed to states across the country. Many still sleep on cots in arenas, desperately trying to locate family members separated in the furies of Katrina. They are struggling with a staggering psychological toll -- destruction of homes, loss of jobs, suffering, abandonment, displacement to a new city, prospects unclear, past literally under water. But while the victims are simply trying to get their bearings, the barracudas are circling. Naomi Klein, who witnessed this in Iraq, calls it "disaster capitalism." Congress has appropriated $62 billion already. Hundreds of billions more will be spent on reclaiming the Gulf...

Flood Victims or Perpetrators? The Ugly Reality Excerpt from a letter by Chris Edwards who lives on the West Bank of New Orleans posted at ChronWatch.com "The looting here has been bad. You won't see it on television, since we're not even close to being newsworthy, considering all the deprivation, death, and suffering being reported. Our parish took in the first 600 evacuees, and put them up in one of our brand new high schools located next to I-10. In l0 hours they had trashed the school, torn out urinals, ripped the bleachers out of the gym, and trashed the...

<p>Hundreds of survivors of Hurricane Katrina lined up Thursday outside the Reliant Center in Houston in hopes of getting $2,000 government debit cards, but there's confusion about who can get the cards and when.</p>

Centerville sends police to hurricane-ravaged area Chief, other volunteers to help re-establish small-town police force Tuesday night the Centerville City Council met in regular session. Councilman Robert Smith opened the meeting with an inspirational prayer for the victims of the Hurricane Katrina. Smith’s words were not the empty rhetoric of so many national politicians, but symbolized the resolve of Mayor Ronnie Brand and the other members of the City Council to help those in need. Chief Ernie Pardo, with the full support of the city government, announced that a special team from the Centerville Police Department will be traveling to...

Who is to blame for New Orleans? By William John Hagan Houston Home Journal Print Edition 09/07/2005 David Vitter, a United States Senator from Louisiana, estimates that the death toll from Hurricane Katrina could reach 10,000 people. The reality is that a true death toll will never be known but 10,000 dead may just scratch the surface. Large-scale casualties in a natural disaster such as Katrina in unavoidable but the fact that the world’s most advanced nation had days to prevent such a massive number of deaths makes these numbers even more unacceptable. In the coming weeks politically-motivated accusations of...